To Start Life Anew
by Polexia Aphrodite
Summary: Before the serum, in Brooklyn in the late 1930s, Steve Rogers finds someone who makes him forget about what ails him. Steve/OC.


**_Notes:_** This is just a hypothetical imagining of a relationship Steve could have had before the serum, leading up to his departure for Europe. As a disclaimer, this story does use the word "cripple" once or twice to describe a person who is disabled. I don't approve of the term myself, but it's use here is meant to evoke a time period when it would have been more widely accepted.

Many thanks go to ym4yum1 for her help and suggestions.

Hope you like it. As always, reviews are very appreciated.

* * *

_Here's the Japanese Sandman, sneaking on with the dew._

_Just an old second-hand man, he'll buy your old day from you._

_He will take every sorrow of the day that is through_

_and he'll give you tomorrow, just to start life anew._

_Then you'll be a bit older, in the dawn when you wake._

_You will be a bit bolder, in the new day you make._

_Here's the Japanese Sandman, trade him silver for gold._

_Just an old second-hand man, trading new days for old._

_-The Japanese Sandman_, Raymond B. Egan, 1920

* * *

When Steve Rogers enrolls in Auburndale Art School in 1937, his life is upside-down. His mother hasn't been dead a year, and he's moved in with Bucky, taking the place of a cousin who moved to Atlantic City.

They do alright together. They've been looking out for each other for years already, since Bucky first recruited him to run booze to the speakeasies for Vannie Higgins. Steve knew he should have had more reservations about breaking the law, but the money was good and Bucky was his friend and his mother never found out. It was hard to see the harm in it.

Even after legal liquor hit the streets again, they stayed together, finding odd jobs and keeping each other going, something that gets harder after Sarah Rogers' death.

She had wanted to see him at school, at a place like Auburndale, and it's the only thing that makes him go. As much as he loves art, there's a heaviness inside him that makes everything hard, even this.

* * *

Alice Doherty is the type his mother would have called "a nice Irish girl," with her simple, cotton dresses and the little gold crucifix around her neck. All the other girls in their class keep their hair short and tightly pin-curled, but she lets hers hang long, half tied back, falling around her shoulders in auburn waves. She's old-fashioned, and it sets her aside from the others.

What makes her truly, inescapably different, though, are the braces on her legs – metal and leather contraptions hooked onto heavy, ugly brown shoes. Whenever she enters a room, pulling herself along on wooden crutches, Steve feels invisible in the best way. He isn't the sickliest one anymore. His pale skin and coughing, the slight curve of his spine, seem nondescript by comparison.

She doesn't have friends. Wild rumors follow her, so much so that even without her ruined legs, Steve guesses she'd still be an outcast. He hears that her father was a bootlegger and a brute. He overhears a lot of nasty, jealous comments about the car and driver that pick her up every day after class. The most vicious rumors allege that the polio that claimed her legs left her feeble-minded, too.

He almost feels sorry for her – not because she's crippled, but because of the awful gossip. But Steve has seen her paintings, with their bold, distorted expressionist lines and glaring fauvist colors. They're deep, full of meaning and violent emotion. He sees, even if nobody else seems to, that she's something else. He sees that she deserves more than to be pitied.

He finds her around the city sometimes, in the parks and museums and city benches where he sits and sketches. He finds her in the Met and the Whitney and the Frick. He knows he can always find her in front of the Kirchner and she knows he'll be in the Degas gallery. She's always alone, but then, so is he. After a few encounters, she starts to meet his eyes and wave when she spots him. He waves back. A few more run-ins, and they start sitting next to each other, each absorbed in the sketchpads on their laps.

"You go to Auburndale," she says one afternoon, after a few weeks of sketching together in silence.

He nods.

"I've seen your work. You're good, you know."

He shrugs.

She looks him up and down. "Ain't much for conversation, are you?"

Steve flinches and looks over at her apologetically. She just smiles and carries on; she talks so much, there's barely room for him to get a word in, even if he wanted to.

He likes listening to her though; he likes her stories about her gangster father (turns out, that rumor was true), her ridiculous sisters and complacent mother. She's acerbic and funny and nothing at all like anyone back at Auburndale thinks she is. Listening to her talk about her family makes him forget, for a little while, that he doesn't have one anymore.

* * *

Bucky's always trying to convince Steve that he isn't as sick as he is. He can't stand it when Steve talks about it, even a little. He's always pretending that Steve will get better any day. He's so damn hopeful; it makes Steve wish he could punch him in the jaw.

Alice is different, though. She talks about her infirmity like it's some kind of cosmic joke. She laughs when she calls herself a cripple, and somehow she makes the word sound absurd and irrelevant. She despises the way people react to her disability – with reverence and gentleness and fear – and Steve starts to agree with her.

When he's with her, he starts to realize that all the things that ail him – his asthma and scoliosis and weak heart – aren't as devastating as he thought they were. He realizes that he can laugh at the people who would pity him and keep going, like she does.

* * *

He only sees her once without a sketchpad, in a dank back alley where he would have hoped never to encounter her.

Steve doesn't know what he did to attract Jimmy Doyle's animosity, but that's how it usually is. What he does know is that men like him will always prey on weakness, which Steve knows he has in droves. Jimmy's pummeling the life out of him when Steve hears, dimly, the creak and gentle thump of braces and crutches. He looks up at Jimmy, but his eyes are angry and blank, his face beet-red; he hasn't heard anything.

He sees Alice behind Jimmy just a second before the wide end of her crutch hits the side of his head. Jimmy crumples to the ground next to him, his hand covering his temple. Steve looks up at Alice; one crutch lies on the ground and she holds the other with both hands, swung back over her shoulder, ready for another hit. He doesn't know how much effort it takes for her to stand without the crutches, but her face is uncommonly pale and the faint jangling coming from her braces tells him she's shaking.

Jimmy wheels on her, and Steve struggles to his feet, ready to defend her even though he's pretty damn doubtful about whether or not he can.

"Do you know who I am?"

Alice's voice rattles through the alley. Jimmy seems startled, but he nods, and when she tells him to go, he curses at Steve and storms back out to the street.

In his wake, the two of them stand together for a long moment. She laughs, then sags a little, reaching out for the brick wall behind her. Steve scrambles over to her just in time to keep her from sinking to the ground.

His arms are tight around her waist; her hands are on his shoulders. He can see the sweat beading on her forehead, but she's still smiling.

"Bein' Mickey Doherty's daughter ain't for nothing," she says, and he can't help smiling back at her.

* * *

Something opens up between them after that. Steve talks to her a little more. When she asks, he tells her about his mother, that she died, and that he's alone now, with Bucky. She listens to him carefully, her eyes on his face, her hand on his arm. Being the sole object of her attention is at once unnerving and thrilling.

He doesn't know how she does it, but she gets him to tell her about his father, too, even though everything he knows about him came from his mother. And he tells her about Bucky and Vannie Higgins and which galleries he likes best and the last Dodgers game he and Bucky saw at Ebbets Field.

Steve knows he's terrible at talking to dames, but Alice isn't quite the same. Of course, Steve knows she's a woman – it doesn't escape his notice that, without the braces, she'd be a knockout – but unlike the girls Bucky brings around, it's easy to make her smile, and he can tell that she hears him, understands him.

* * *

It's an unseasonably warm April afternoon when she finds him on a bench in Prospect Park. She smiles when she sits down next to him, setting aside her crutches and pulling her sketchpad out of the bag slung across her shoulder. For a full hour, neither of them say a word; they just sit together in a mostly companionable silence, punctuated by the scratch of pencils across paper, or the cries of playing children.

Alice breaks the silence first.

"I want you to draw me like one of the girls in class."

"Like…what?"

She rolls her eyes, because she knows he knows what she means.

"You know. A nude."

He looks at her for a long moment, frozen and unsure.

"You're so good at it," she says quietly, "And I want you to. I trust you."

He reels for a moment. The truth is, he's been sketching her for days. She has an interesting face, and in certain lights the smattering of freckles across her cheekbones, the bump on the bridge of her nose, the arch of her eyebrows, sing out to be drawn. But, even though he's been in plenty of figure drawing classes, the idea of sketching a nude of someone he _knows_ seems terrifying.

But he can't do anything but shrug and say "Sure."

He leads her to his and Bucky's apartment – a tiny three-room tenement in a crowded, noisy neighborhood. Steve thanks God that it's only two flights of stairs up, and then he's leading her through his doorway and it seems far too late to turn back now.

"You live here?" she asks, as she looks around.

Steve blushes, seeing the apartment he and Bucky share with new eyes. The wallpaper's peeling, stained brown where the pipes leak. The floorboards are scratched and scuffed. Their furniture is worn and musty.

"Is it—" he starts, but she shakes her head to silence him.

"We used to live in a place like this, when I was a kid. Before Mr. Volstead made us rich," she smiles and he forces himself to smile back, even though it feels like something's stuck in his throat.

He points her towards the bedroom to undress, because he figures she'd rather do that in private, and settles into the parlor, pulling out his good pencils and a fresh sketchpad.

In the back bedroom, a tiny, cramped space with a window looking out onto a fire escape, Alice finds two tiny beds pressed against the walls. She guesses that the one with the tightly folded corners and the carved wood crucifix hanging over it is Steve's. There isn't much else – a couple of nightstands and a wooden dresser that seems too big and heavy for the room.

"Where's your roommate?" she calls out to him.

He clears his throat, "At work."

Steve thinks of what Bucky must be doing at that moment, loading trucks in a warehouse and pretending to be eighteen years old. There's a kind of thrill in knowing that he's not doing anything that Bucky thinks he's doing right now.

He focuses on sharpening his pencils, not trusting himself to look up when she comes out. She sits on the sofa, sets her crutches on the floor, and swings her legs up. Steve can't pretend to fuss with his tools forever – he knows she's the last person he could fool – so he looks up at her.

She settles one ankle over the other and leans back against the pillows. She looks like the Venus of Urbino, all soft, peachy skin and curving hips and full, rose-tipped breasts. She meets his gaze with a determined look on her face; her eyes are dark and bright, her hair falls loose around her shoulders. The sight of her makes his heart stutter. He knows immediately that nothing he can draw will do this justice, but he sets to work anyway.

* * *

When he tells her he's finished, she smiles and props herself up on her elbows. He tries not to think about how good the move makes her look. He holds out the sketchpad towards her and she nods her approval.

"Knew you'd do a good job," she grins up at him, then sits up more fully, swinging her legs over the side of the couch. "Help me up?" she asks stretching out her arms towards him.

Steve feels his mouth go dry. It was enough just to _see_ her; the idea of putting his hands on her seems like more than he can bear. But he knows she needs his help, so he clenches his jaw and swallows hard, stands and moves to her side.

He leans down and puts his hands on her waist. She's small, not much bigger than he is, and without the braces, she seems even more slender. Her arms circle his shoulders and together they lift her up. She smiles at him, a little breathlessly. Steve tries desperately to forget the fact that he's holding a naked woman in his arms.

They stand still for a moment, catching their balance, and Steve feels his resolve falter. Just for a moment, he lets himself feel her skin, soft and warm under his fingers. His eyes flicker downward, and even though he's spent the last half hour looking at her, the sight of her breasts pressed against his chest is another thing altogether.

There's a familiar rushing sensation to his groin, and he panics, because he knows he can't let go of her and she's pressed _so tight_ against him.

"C'mon," he says softly, and tries to shift them back towards the bedroom, "You can lean on me."

She doesn't budge, just wraps her arms around his shoulders tighter. She murmurs his name and her face dips towards him. He can almost feel her lips against the side of his throat, just above the line of his collar, and it makes a jolt of electricity shoot down his spine.

"_Alice_," he starts, ready to tell her that this is a bad idea, that this isn't really what she wants (because no one wants _him_), but then she shifts, looking him straight in the eye. She rolls her hips against his, and now he knows she knows. With her eyes on his and her body pushed up against him, there's no hiding how much he wants her.

Steve blushes a furious pink and tries for a frantic moment to get them _moving_ towards the bedroom, so she can change and leave and he can spend the rest of his life trying to forget how embarrassed he is in this moment.

But then she moves towards him.

Her mouth presses against his, coaxing his lips open, letting her tongue brush against his. Steve whimpers into her mouth, and immediately curses the wretched, uncontrollable sound. But Alice doesn't seem to notice, or if she does, it doesn't make her stop.

Suddenly the room is like a furnace, he feels flushed and desperate, his hands are everywhere at once, and so are hers. Her hair, her skin, her mouth, is soft and warm under his touch. No one has ever touched him, ever wanted him like this and it makes his head spin, makes something white-hot coil inside him.

Steve kisses her all the way into the bedroom, half-carrying and stumbling with her past the kitchen and down the short hallway. He gets her inside and she stumbles, pulling him down onto his mattress. His brain short-circuits for a moment because _Christ_ there's a naked girl in his bed and he's on top of her, but the coquettish glint in her eyes makes him start to wonder how much of this she's been planning all along.

"We can," she murmurs suggestively, her fingers spread in his hair, her lips pressing against the corner of his mouth, "If you want to."

He manages to raise an eyebrow. "That depends," he starts dryly, "Is your father going to dump my body in the East River or the Hudson?"

"He's not like that," she pouts.

"What, you think he'd like me?"

She grins and shakes her head, "He'd hate you. But he's not here. And _I _don't hate you."

"I kinda figured."

He asks her if she's done it before, and she hesitates for a long moment before she tells him she hasn't. He tells her he hasn't, either.

"You don't want to—What about…when you're married?" Steve frowns; he hates the idea of taking something away from her.

She gives him a long look. "You're quite the optimist," she says, in a voice so quiet, if he weren't pressed up against her, he wouldn't have heard it. She shakes her head. "No sense in waiting."

It makes his heart sink a little, if only because he knows she isn't wrong, and that what's true for her is probably true for him, too.

He's lived with Bucky too long to have any romantic notions left about love and sex, and he knows he isn't _in love_ with Alice. But, he realizes then, he still wants her for more reasons than just the ache between his legs. She's interesting and stronger than she looks. She knows what it's like to be weak, and to want more. They're the same in so many ways.

"Are you sure?" he asks, and she huffs, rolls her eyes, and pulls him down for another kiss. It feels different to kiss her when she's underneath him, knowing what she wants to do with him.

She slides a hand between them, and her fingers cup his erection over his slacks. He settles between her legs almost instinctively, grinding uncontrollably against the pressure of her palm. When she finally pulls away, he's breathless again and harder than he's ever been in his life.

"Bucky has rubbers," he mutters, reaching for the nightstand by his bed.

Alice pulls him back. "Don't need 'em."

He looks at her in confusion. Something dark flickers in her eyes, but she steels herself and tries to explain anyway.

"I can't— The doctors told me—"

Steve isn't too worldly about these kinds of things – _women's matters_ – but he understands this immediately. He pulls her back against him and kisses her, slowly and thoroughly, until he's sure he's wrung some of the sadness out of her.

She unbuttons his shirt and pulls it and his suspenders off his shoulders. Together, they make short work of his clothes, letting them fall in a heap on the floor, and then he's naked and fighting hard against his own bewilderment.

When he asks (too politely), she lets him handle her, lets him run his fingers down her body, tracing the curves of her breasts and hips, lets him dip his hand between her thighs. He hears the hitch in her breath, the little moan she gives, when he feels the heat of her, soaking his fingers, and it sends a rush of masculine pride through him.

"_Steve_," she murmurs, tilting her hips, and he takes the hint. He slides over her and positions himself at her entrance, just barely pressing against her. He watches her face, waits for her nod, and eases forward, feeling her fingers dig into his arms. And then he's not a virgin anymore. Neither of them are.

"Does it hurt?" he gasps once he's fully seated inside of her. The tight stretch of her around him makes him shudder and fist his hands in the sheets on either side of her head.

"No," she says sharply, but when she looks up at him, her face softens, "A little."

"Should I—" he starts, but she interrupts him.

"Don't—Don't stop."

He rocks his hips back and forth, dropping his head to her shoulder. His vision blurs; it's so damn good, he can hardly see straight. He suddenly understands why Bucky chases skirts all the time.

After a few strokes, Alice sighs and relaxes under him.

"'S'good," she tells him, "Like that."

It's not long before he's pushed over the edge, crying out against her shoulder, her hands stroking the back of his neck as he spends.

She smiles at him when he looks up at her, a little sheepishly. When he pulls himself off of her, he sees a smear of red on the sheets that terrifies him until she tells him that it's nothing to worry about, because she has sisters and she knows these things.

They lie together for a while without talking much. They keep kissing and touching, though, because neither of them have ever had this before and don't know when they might have it again. After a while, Steve is pressing hard against her thigh and she smiles; they make love again and everything is perfect for just a little while longer.

* * *

As the day settles into evening, the shadows across Steve's bed grow long and the light filtering in through the window turns golden. Alice has been sleeping with her head on Steve's chest for at least an hour, and he hardly has the heart to wake her. And besides, laying with her like this, with his arm curled around her bare back, feels good – it makes him feel older and stronger to do these things that men and women do together.

He's almost drifted to sleep himself, losing all track of time, when he hears the door open. He starts, panics, but has utterly no idea what to do. Alice stirs and opens her eyes just as Bucky enters the room, his hat in his hand, pulling off his jacket. The three of them freeze for a moment, Bucky's jaw open and his eyes wide, before Alice covers her face with her hands and turns into the pillow. Steve yanks the blanket up and over her.

"What the hell, Bucky," he snaps irritably. Pulled out of his initial shock, Bucky grins and holds his hands up defensively, marching backwards out of the apartment.

They dress quickly. Alice hands Steve a card with a phone number, and he takes it to the phone in the hall. When a gruff voice answers, he announces primly, and, he hopes, innocently, "I'm calling on behalf of Miss Doherty." He gives her father's driver his address and he tries not to wonder about the potential consequences of Mickey Doherty knowing where the man who took his daughter's virginity lives.

From his window, Steve watches the car screech up to the sidewalk in front of his building and helps Alice down the stairs. After he leads her into the car – a monstrous coal-black Chrysler – he turns to find Bucky leaning against the brick apartment building, taking in the scene with a Lucky pinched between his fingers.

Steve walks up to him, because at this point, the whole situation is inescapable. And how embarrassing can it be, really, when he's walked in on Bucky in the same position more times than he'd like to remember. Bucky doesn't say anything, just grins, swings an arm around his shoulder, and walks him back inside.

Bucky never mentions it, but something shifts a little between them. When they go out – to bars or baseball games or dance halls – Bucky stops looking at him like he's made of glass. He starts pointing out pretty girls to him on the street and introduces Steve, over frosty mugs of foamy beer, to the men from the warehouse where he works. Steve doesn't claim to understand it, but he knows that he's different now.

* * *

Three weeks later, the Dohertys move to Chicago. Alice tells him that she'll find a new art school to attend, that they've got galleries and museums in Chicago, just as good as the ones in New York. Maybe better. She tells him she'll be fine.

Steve knows she was never his girl, and in the weeks that followed their tryst at his apartment, it hasn't happened again. But when she tells him that she's leaving, something hard in his chest twists and pulls. He realizes suddenly that she means _something_ to him; he just hasn't had enough time to figure out what it is.

When she says goodbye to him, she kisses his cheek. He doubts he'll ever see her again.

* * *

**1943**

In five years, Steve's entire life has changed. Bucky is gone to Europe, and he's Captain America, war bond salesman and professional autograph-signer, hand-shaker and baby-kisser. It's strange, miserable work, but, he tells himself, at least he gets to see the country, which is more than what he would have had if he had stayed in Brooklyn.

When they open in Chicago, he can't help but think of Alice. He wonders if she still lives here, but without any way to reach her, he has no way of knowing.

But then, after the show is done, when he's filing out of the stage door with a crowd of chorus girls chattering around him, he spots her. It's like magic; it almost makes the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

She's leaning against the brick wall opposite the exit, a cigarette dangling between two fingers of her right hand. Her hair is shorter and more stylish, and she's wearing more makeup than she used to. She blows out a puff of smoke and smiles at him. She's _lovely_, he decides immediately. Everything about her is lovely.

"Well, well. The star-spangled man himself," she says as he moves towards her. He knows the girls are watching him – watching them – as they make their way out of the exit and down the alley, but it doesn't matter.

Up close, the first thing he notices about her is that she only has one brace instead of two, on her left leg, and there's not a crutch in sight.

"Your legs—" he starts, but he doesn't know how to finish, because he doesn't know how this happened.

"You're not the only one who's had work done," she smirks.

He smiles too, then cringes a little when he realizes that her presence here means she probably saw the show.

"C'mon," she waves her hand, "There's a little diner around the corner. Big fella like you's gotta be hungry after a thing like that."

He runs a hand through his hair self-consciously, and he lets her lead him out of the alley to a brightly-lit diner where they take seats in a booth.

Seeing her is everything, because it's been so long since he's seen anyone from before the serum and the fame and the singing and dancing. They talk for a long time over cups of black coffee. It doesn't matter that she's been living in Chicago for years; everything about her reminds him of home.

He talks to her – really talks to her – for the first time. Before, he was always too awkward and nervous and usually content to just listen to her, but now they talk together easily. He tells her about Dr. Erskine and Project Rebirth and Senator Brandt. When he tells her what the serum did to him, she doesn't look amazed and astonished, like most people do. She looks at him with concern and trepidation in her eyes, and he starts to wonder if maybe that's the right reaction to what happened to him. He wonders if that's how Bucky will look at him when he finds out, too.

When he's done, she tells him about her gallery shows and the paintings she's sold and the artists she's met. She tells him about the operation that fused her right knee and eliminated the need for one of her braces. She tells him that she's getting stronger; that the doctors say one day she might not need the braces at all. Talking with her feels adult and normal and comforting in a way Steve can't put his finger on.

"Is it really embarrassing? The show?" he asks, because he knows that she'll tell him the truth.

She wrinkles her nose.

"Picasso doesn't wear tights."

Steve raises an eyebrow, "And I'm not a surrealist."

She hedges for a moment. "Can't they let you do anything else? There must be something more…" she trails off.

He shrugs and tells her he's heading to Italy in a week, to entertain the troops. He tells her that _that_'s something and she just smiles and agrees with him.

After they finish their coffee, he offers to walk her back to her place, and they head out into the night. At her building, he takes the liberty of walking with her up to her apartment. It's filled with art and knickknacks. It's cramped and bohemian and cozy. He likes it. He walks around her parlor silently, taking in the paintings that cover the walls, almost from floor to ceiling, most of which he can tell aren't hers. When he hears her huff behind him, he turns.

She looks up at him coyly, one eyebrow cocked, "Are you gonna take me to bed or not, Captain?"

He grins. He should have known she'd be this forward. He crosses the room in three long strides and scoops her up. She laughs in his arms, and it's the best thing he's heard all day.

In her bedroom, he strips her out of her dress, running his hands along the length of her as he does. She makes quick work of her brace, bra, girdle, and stockings, while he shucks off his shoes, shirt and slacks. When he's got her in her bed, when he's got her warm and wriggling underneath him, just where he wants her (where he's wanted her since they left the diner), she stills suddenly, taking his face between her hands. She turns so serious, he can't help but sober along with her.

"Steve?" she whispers, her fingers tracing the planes of his face, "Are you still in there?"

His brow furrows. No one who knew him – _really_ knew him – before the serum has seen him like this. Suddenly he feels unrecognizable.

He wraps his arms around her tighter, though he knows he has to be careful with his strength now. "I'm here," he whispers back, pressing his lips to her cheek, the corner of her mouth, her forehead, "It's me. It is."

She sighs and runs a hand through his hair.

"It never mattered to me that you were small or sick," she tells him, "If you were still like that now, I would still want you."

For a moment he feels desperate and adrift. There's something going on inside her that he can't understand and it terrifies him. He wishes he had told her more about why he did it – about the war and watching Bucky leave and how _nothing_ was changing for him.

He nuzzles the side of her neck, one hand lowering shamelessly to cup her breast. He feels her curl around him. "You don't want me now?" he asks, even though he can hear how pathetic the question sounds.

Alice laughs. "I'm not exactly kicking you out of bed. But it's not because of this," she pinches his the hard muscle of his bicep and he smiles.

Steve kisses her, long and slow, like he did once before, back in Brooklyn. She reaches a hand between them and wraps her fingers around his erection. "This hasn't changed," she murmurs gratefully, and his hips jerk against her hand.

He wonders if she's been with anyone since him, but then the way handles him, the way she rolls her hips against his, tells him that she has.

He's learned some things too, on the road, from a few persistent chorus girls, and he eagerly works her over with his hands and mouth. Even though he's rock-hard, aching and already leaking against the sheets, he refuses to even think of entering her until he's coaxed her into two shuddering, earth-shattering falls. When he slides back over her and inside of her, she's babbling his name incoherently. Between the soft, pleased sounds she's making and the feel of her, hot and snug around him, he's fighting for control long before he's ready.

They've both gained in strength, flexibility, and stamina over the past few years (though, thanks to the serum, Steve has outpaced Alice by far), and they make a long night of it. In between rounds, they talk about what they miss about Brooklyn over glasses of ice and bourbon.

Steve finally rolls out of her bed at four in the morning, because he has a train to catch. He dresses, and she walks him to her door wrapped in a pale blue robe.

"Next time you're in Chicago…" she starts, leaning against the doorjamb.

He smiles. "I'll look you up."

"Don't do anything stupid over there," she tells him sternly, wagging her finger at him.

He catches her hand between his and rolls his eyes, "It's a USO show, not the front lines."

He kisses her one more time, because she looks beautiful with her rumpled hair and lips swollen and pink from his kisses, and because next week he'll be in Europe and who knows when they'll see each other again.

"Give my regards to Bob Hope," she calls when he's halfway down her hall, and he turns, grins, and salutes. When she smiles back, he feels like he's caught the brass ring.

In two hours, he's on a train to New York City, watching the Chicago skyline disappear into the distance.


End file.
